Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Orange (the color) (11/19/09)
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TITLE: William of Orange & the Seeds of Reformation | Previous Challenge Entry
By Troy Manning
11/25/09 -
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William Evan Orange, whom we, and others, will still call Billy, could hardly be seen as a secret agent because too many people saw him for who he really was. Billy Evan Orange was, and still is, a rascal of sorts but not quite like the kind you’re picturing. But, not to worry, we will let you in on his little secret. When Billy Evan was nearly hired on at Dickens and Sons, we thought it strange since he wasn’t even related, but, as the others pointed out, he could certainly run like the Dickens. Fleet-of-foot all and left-handed like the Benjamin boys, the Dickens sons could put an eye out with a stick from a half-furlong away and not miss the retina either. “Now you see us, now you don’t,” they’d mock their hapless victims while shaking a stick at them before performing their unforeseen and unafterseen butcheries. Big Marva was the mother of a majority of Dickens’ sons and she didn’t take too kindly to Billy Boy, as she called him. He had heard about the antics of her and Cynthia’s sons and started quaking in his boots when she shook a stick and much of her body at him one day in December. Cynthia, who stayed friends over the years with Marva after all that transpired between them and their boys’ daddy, was shaking too but it was because she was cold and she wasn’t as big. As soon as Marva said, “Now you see us,” Billy ran like the Dixon guy that used to play for the Oregon Ducks. Marva, who could walk like a duck but couldn’t run at all, knew she was licked and turned to Cynthia and asked what did she know about that. Cynthia said she knew where he lived and that she could speak with his mother about a position with the firm as a runner. A runner, shoot, said Marva as she remembered the time Billy bought a shotgun and scared the dispensationalism out of a Baptist pastor that threatened him with brimstone-seared britches if he didn’t butt out of his business. Unlike his momma, Olivia Orange, also a pastor, but a nice one, and Methodist, who didn’t believe in no brimstone, the Baptist pastor carried a chip on his shoulder like no tomorrow. Most days of the month you couldn’t tell him and big Marva apart. One day Willard Dickens watched him through the open chapel window and said to him, you shakin’ like my momma shake. That broke the congregation up and had the rollers in the aisles. Willard Dickens and William Orange became friends for a while after that because it made the membership of Olivia’s church grow. But Marva continued to be contemptuous of Billy Boy and his mother. She said church folk can’t just get along and just look at all the wars caused by individuals of a religious inclination. When she said, referring to Billy, they also believe in ownin’ guns, Olivia lost it and cried. When she said, referring to Olivia, that women is a weaker vessel and shouldn’t be no pastor, Billy’s momma got out the shotgun and said she taught her boy to shoot good so she better start runnin’. As previously mentioned, running wasn’t a strong suit of Marva’s so she walked away and that was good enough for Olivia. On her way home, Marva saw her son Willard and one of Cynthia’s boys shaking a stick at a one-eyed vendor behind a fruit stand while Billy stole oranges to use their seeds to start a new family tree. As soon as Willard said, “Now you see us,” Marva hit him with her purse and said he was behavin’ like an altar boy. It wasn’t long after that that Dickens and Sons went out of business and the family became Reformed.
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